The following actions are the province of governments. If yours is dragging the chain, let you local, state and national political representatives know your views, and ask them what they will do to represent your views and suggestions.

Implement a feed in tariff which provides payment for clean energy of 5 times the retail rate (e.g. to those with solar panels that feed power into a grid). This has been very successful in Germany.

Mandate that new buildings to produce 20 per cent of their energy requirements in building energy efficiency standards. This encourages both energy efficient design and installation of solar panels and/or wind power. This legislation has been successfully introduced in Germany.

Implement a revolving energy fund (REF) to provide a financial incentive for councils or other levels of government to implement energy efficiency measures and practices.

Introduce legislation to charge coal fired power stations the full cost of the very large amount of water they use.

Shift existing coal fired power stations to usage of recycled water rather than drinking water.

Introduce legislation to promote the use of sustainable biofuels such as crop residues and waste organic matter.

Remove subsidies that encourage the use of fossil fuels , such as the commercial diesel fuel rebate in Australia

Price fossil fuels according to their environmental impact and scarcity. For example, a larger amount of diesel is obtained from a given volume of crude oil compared to petrol, and diesel engines are more efficient than petrol engines. Diesel could therefore be cheaper than petrol.

Remove tax concessions that encourage the use of fossil fuels - such as the tax deductible car leases that mandate a minimum distance the vehicle must travel per year.

Invest public money in the high risk ventures such as so called clean coal. It is not proven, it may not be commercially or scientifically viable, and it will take 10 to 15 years to implement (if it can be made to work).

Use nuclear power as an energy source as it is not sustainable, the nuclear waste problem is intractable, and new nuclear power stations will take 10 to 15 years to build so it will be too late.

Promote the use of unsustainable biofuels such as burning woodchips from native forests, making ethanol from corn or sugarcane, or palm oil.

Make paper telephone directories optional. Provide households that request them with telephone/address book data on CD roms and cheap CD/LCD display units for households that request them. Allow households to opt out from all directory distribution - some may choose to just use the Internet.